


Tax Evasion

by icicleteeth



Series: The Outlander and the Servant [1]
Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
Genre: Gen, Morrowind (Elder Scrolls), The Grumpy character (eventually) warms up to the Sunshine character, begrudging friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:06:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26977081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icicleteeth/pseuds/icicleteeth
Summary: A crass ex-criminal arrives in the small swampland town of Seyda Neen fresh off a prison ship from Cyrodiil. He faces his sudden deportation to Morrowind lost and penniless, with only a vague investigative job of finding a missing tax collector and a small and annoyingly friendly inn servant keeping him grounded in a new and terrible land he's determined to escape by any means necessary.Or, as I prefer to call it: Living Trash Learns The Power Of Friendship From Small Wizard
Series: The Outlander and the Servant [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1968751
Kudos: 7





	Tax Evasion

**Author's Note:**

> Just a collection of short stories with my friend's OC (Outlander) and my own (Servyn) not intended for regular updates, as all chapters, though somewhat tying together, are meant as standalone short stories. Also not meant as a spinoff of my main fic Mage's Servant, I just use Servyn for everything, haha

On a musky, miserable afternoon in the musky, miserable swamp town of Seyda Neen, an equally musky and miserable prisoner shambles into the Census and Exile building, cold and tired from having spent the past several days on a long and turbulent journey by boat to Vvardenfell, all the way from Cyrodiil. A well dressed Breton sat at the front desk wastes no time in greeting the prisoner and urging him to sit down in the empty chair by the desk, and “have a look at your papers, for you’ll need to fill them out before we can speak further about your release.”

The prisoner perks up at the last part, for in truth he hadn’t expected to ever taste freedom again. The Imperial City Prison was one thing, but a deportation to Morrowind was all but a cruel and unusual death sentence, as far as he was concerned. He does as he’s told, and examines the papers before him.

Standard procedures, as far as he’s seen: Name, race, birthsign, professions, if any (in his case, many; but that was none of their business). After a few minutes of writing, the prisoner grumbles a half-hearted “Done” as the writing quill is pushed aside and the prisoner rests his arms on the table with a _clack_. The iron bracer around his right arm enchanted with magicka-draining properties wasn’t anything new to him, for being a prisoner in itself wasn’t anything new to him—but gods, did these bracers still ache, despite their enchantments being utterly useless to him, a mer who never once in his life bothered with any of the schools of magic outside of learning a few cheap magic tricks.

The Breton, Socucius Ergalla, takes the parchment with a gracious nod, though this gratitude quickly sours into a frown.

“Ahem, you must fill _all_ of it out before we may officially release you.”

Socucius refers to the empty space at the top of the parchment marked with “Name”. He wants to blurt that this was on purpose, that they have no business knowing his name—not even any of the many fake names and aliases he went by as a petty criminal in the Imperial City. Unfortunately for him, the look on the mans’ face is firm, and he can tell the Breton would not let him leave until he acquiesced to his silly paperwork guidelines. It only takes him a moment to decide, with a cheeky smug grin, what his new name this time was, and gladly tosses the quill pen aside to the floor and shoves the paper towards Socucius, still smirking as he leans against the table.

“Right, thank you for your cooperation…Outlander.” Socucious sighs, though only receives feigned offense in return.

“What? That _is_ my name. Take it up with my dead mother if you’ve got a problem with it.”

In no mood to humor “Outlander” any further, Socucious stamps the papers with an official seal, and hands them back to the prisoner.

“Show your papers to the captain before you head out. Enjoy your time in Morrowind, “Outlander”.”

With that, Socucius returns to other duties, glad to be rid of the uncouth prisoner. The prisoner, however, was not so glad to be rid of him just yet.

“What do you mean, “enjoy my time in Morrowind”? “

“It means you’re free to go about your business as you please—so long as it conforms with the law, of course.”

“Fine, sure…but is that it? You sentence me here to Morrowind, and that’s that?”

“Vvardenfell, specifically. This is Seyda Neen, Outlander.”

Now it was Socucius’ s turn to be cheeky; he was all too jovial to see the shoe on the other foot, if the prisoner’s frustrated glares were anything to go by.

“What! You lot dump me into some back-water swamp village in the middle of ass-crack nowhere just to send me on my way with nothing!?”

“Would you prefer execution?” the Breton drawls, returning to his work without looking towards Outlander. What follows is a few moments of silence, though the tension in the room is too apparent to really call it _comfortable_ silence. With a restrained sigh, Outlander speaks with a begrudgingly calm voice.

“There’s got to be bigger cities in this cursed province, yeah? A bigger city with better jobs, and all that?”

“You’re thinking of Balmora—Hlaalu city, big _and_ prosperous. You’d best travel by silt strider to get there, but it’s not free.”

Silt striders…he’d heard of such creatures from other Dunmer before. Big, towering beasts controlled by a rider, acting as living carriage services. Definitely not free, he wagers—not that anything in life ever is.

“Do you know of any work that needs fulfilling in this…” he wants to end his sentence with “refuse pile of a slum”, but hastily pivots to “sleepy little town?”

“Well…” Socucius drawls with an undecided tone of either tentative pity or irritated loss of patience with the prisoner’s crassness, “there was an…incident, shall we say, in the office—not confirmed, but we’ve reason to believe something happened to the town’s tax collector, Processus Vitellius. He’s been missing for a couple days now—quite odd, if you know the man. Him and his tavern-hopping and drinking proclivities…”

“So you want me to find the missing tax collector,” Outlander blurts, not at all interested in such extraneous details. All that matters is what he needs to do, and how much it pays for.

“Yes. That is, if a simple Outlander can handle such an undertaking.”

He almost wishes he chose a better alias this time around—Slit-Throat, perhaps. If anything, it’s much more befitting to the cocktail of emotions churning in his mind at the Breton’s words, though maybe it’s for the best that for now these emotions are simply represented by “Outlander”.

As if he hadn’t already had a thousand and one reasons to feel miserable, stepping outside the Census and Exile office is an immediate deluge of unpleasant sensations: homes are nothing more than over glorified shacks and mold-ridden cottages, roads are simply the parts of town that aren’t completely submerged in sickly bubbling swamp bogs, the air smells just as foul, if not more-so, than the murky underbelly of the prison ship (which sported an already heinous stench of unwashed and unkempt prisoners), and the _people_ —the people here are perhaps the most miserable aspect of them all. Not one person wears even the vague inclination of a smile. Even the dragonflies darting by annoyed him to the point of wanting to shout to the heavens about the unfairness of life, and how it’s always the good mer that are handed the most rotten (literally, in this case) lots in life!

Sure, _of course_ he wasn’t actually framed for the theft that got him convicted and sentenced to this gods-forsaken plane of Oblivion. _Of course_ he was the one who stole the family jewels from that nobleman’s manor—but those guards! Those lawless godless guardsmen, they _did_ seem to believe him when he gave them a quite convincing sob story about being framed for the theft…but in the same breath announced that they in fact _did not_ care, and threw him, a mer they believed to be an innocent bystander, in jail anyway! Truly, there is no goodness in this world.

Having been lost in thought, Outlander finds that he’s wandered into the lower residential part of town, situated down the hill from where the Census and Exile office stood. Within the sea of dilapidated shacks poorly passing themselves off as homes, a larger and marginally less run-down looking cabin stands…not very tall, but it sticks out well enough with an adorning of red lanterns and a guarskin banner gently dancing with the wind. The shop title upon the banner is in daedric, which he _can_ read, though it takes a few moments for him to remember the letters. He’s only able to make out “The Red” before a high pitched yelp followed by a flustered man—a short pudgy Dunmer dressed in ragged robes carrying a rolled up bundle of cloth barrels through the sign as he trips into the mud, colliding in a splatter of green and brown much, though positioned with his arms above his body so as not to allow a single stain to reach his bundle. One of these arms—his left one, sports a bracer that looks near identical to Outlander’s magicka-draining bracer.

Upon noticing his presence, the short mer scurries up, standing at his full measly height of just under five feet tall with as much confidence as he can, as if he’d not just fallen into the mud at all.

“Good afternoon, sera! Welcome to The Red Lantern!” he cries, the optimism in his voice only slightly faltering. After a few moments of waiting for a reply or order that doesn’t come, he mutters a timid “Er, we’re not open yet…”

Outlander scoffs. He really ought to start with questioning people in town…yet wasn’t confident he would find anything useful in a bumbling little inn servant like this.

“I’m not a customer. I’m here on official business with the Census and Exile Office.”

The little mer’s eyes widen. He darts his gaze up and down Outlander in an attempt to discern what kind of business he must be on, and gulps. “What _kind_ of business, if I may ask?”

“Investigating. Word in town is an Imperial tax collector’s gone missing, and I’m going to find out to where, and why. Know anything about this…” Outlander pauses, deciding on how he ought to address the Dunmer. “Shorty” or “Fat Scrib” came to mind, though, he thinks, it might not be wise to insult the man just yet. The only other thing that stuck out to him was the mer’s long white locks and facial hair, which, though he can tell from the rest of his face that the servant is quite young, he could very easily be mistaken for an elder from afar. Without a second thought, he ends with “…gramps?”

The servant furrows his brow at being addressed as “gramps”, though shakes his head and replaces the scowl of offense with one of concern.

“No, sera. I had no idea a man was missing at all; gods, I hope he’s alright.”

“Yes yes, woe is him and all that. Now, have you seen a well-dressed Imperial in the past few days or not?”

“Woe is right—I can’t imagine what it must be like, being lost in a swamp like this! Please sera, if there’s anything I can do to help…”

Outlander raises an eyebrow at the Dunmer. Though he would choose to laugh outright at the servant’s seemingly genuine concern (as if anyone would ever sincerely care for a complete stranger), the aid of a second person…as well as the presence of someone to pin the fall on, should the fate of the tax collector turn out to be the worst case scenario could prove to be useful. A part of him feels a twinge of shame towards pinning a crime, be it one he committed or otherwise, on an innocent civilian, as it feels all too familiar to his past life as a street criminal—a life he vowed to leave behind in Cyrodiil.

Too bad, he thinks, for the servant—that part of him isn’t significant enough to sway the stronger part of him that knows survival comes before all else, niceties be damned. Somebody’s always going to take the fall for something, and it sure as hell won’t be him, if he can do anything about it.

“Well…I could use some help in investigating. I’m new in town, you see—“just arrived” new, if you get what I mean. I don’t know anyone or anything about the local area, and could use a hand in figuring out where to look and who to talk to.”

“Ah! You’re new around here too?” The servant beams as if finding solace in someone stuck in the same shitty lot in life as him—at least, that’s how Outlander interprets it. Why else would the mer stare at him as if they’re suddenly close companions? Without answering, he continues.

“Er, but if you say you’ve only just arrived, then you’re certainly newer than me. We could try asking around in The Red Lantern, but there aren’t many folks in there yet—we’re only open at night, you see. But Arrille’s Tradehouse is usually packed all day, so we may try there first! It’s up the wooden awning over there—see the big building?”

The servant points to the distance towards a large wooden dock leading to a cottage even grander than the Census and Exile Office—not that this was much of a compliment given the general state of Seyda Neen, but its size, general absence of moss stains, and chimney bellowing a healthy cloud of smoke suggests it is indeed a good place to start.

“Yeah. Let’s go.”

Outlander sets off, not looking back to make sure the servant was following him, though the second pair of steps splotching in the mud behind him answers the question he didn’t actually care too much to bother with.

“I’m Servyn! Erm, just Servyn, if you please…”

“Fine.” The short mer’s name meant little to Outlander—so little, in fact, that he’d already forgotten it, and sets upon the dirt road through town towards the wooden stairs to the tradehouse with no more than an “up here”—to which Servyn obeys diligently, though with much effort dedicated to keeping up with the significantly taller mer.

“Should we do some shopping while we’re here, sera?” Servyn asks as the pair stop before the front door. “I haven’t got much to spare, but maybe we could pitch in what we have for a lantern, a pair of boots for swamp-wading…ah! It’s well passed lunchtime; might we pick up something to eat?”

Outlander rolls his eyes at the prospect of him, a newly arrived penniless ex criminal, doing any “shopping”. What a dense little mer, he thinks, to take one look at his unkempt tousled hair and filthy ragged tunic and trousers, and think they were in any position to do any shopping—the damn servant’s attire was just as inadequate and patchy as his own!

“Please. We’re not packing for an adventure—it’s a small town; the tax collector can’t have gone too far anywhere.”

Arrille’s Tradehouse is smaller on the inside than Outlander expected, but no less cozy. A lit fireplace crackles with scarce cinders floating restlessly through the warm air, serenaded by muffled chattering, clanking bottles, and dice rolling upon wooden tables—an inn, he suspects, situated on the second floor to which the staircase tucked in the back of the foyer leads to. The aroma of freshly baked bread lingers in the air; he’d be lying if he denied the aching pit in his stomach goading him with a low rumble to humor the servant’s proposal to settle down for some lunch; but unlike the smaller mer, he wasn’t _stupid_ —he doesn’t have money for that. Not yet, anyway.

“Greetings, Altmer,” Outlander clears his throat and speaks with as much politeness as he can muster. “I’m with the local Census and Exile office, investigating the disappearance of the Imperial tax collector known as Processus Vitellius. Might you know of any details regarding his disappearance, or of any leads I may follow on this case?”

Arrille, the Altmer in question, gives him no more than a curious side glance as he neatens his shelf of display potions.

“You must be new in town, asking about Processus as if you don’t know what happened to him.”

Outlander blinks. Surely if anyone knew what happened to the tax collector, the Census and Exile Office would’ve heard about it by now. Behind him, Servyn looks just as confused and lost.

“Murdered,” Arrille continues, taking Outlander’s silence as an invitation to fill him in. “No solid proof, but everyone knows it. One doesn’t simply disappear in Seyda Neen temporarily, let alone turn up alive by the end of it.”

“A murder!? A-are you sure?”

The servant’s fake concern quickly began to grate on Outlander’s patience, making him all the more eager to find a reason to ditch him. For now, he can only keep his focus on the investigation.

“Damn tax collectors ask for it with their line of work—still, you’re absolutely sure he was done in? It can’t have been easy to murder someone in a town as small as this so covertly that the body hasn’t been found yet.”

“Probably didn’t happen in town.” Satisfied with the potion shelf, Arrille turns to organizing his scrolls, carrying on as if they weren’t discussing morbid theories about a man’s murder. “Doubt anyone would go looking for a body in the wilderness, least of all near the slaughterfish infested shorelines—it’s miserable enough in our neighborhoods! If I were so inclined to search for a discarded rotting corpse, I’d start there.”

“Thanks. Come on, Servant.” The prospect of finding a dead body was nothing new to him—least of all in his line of work back in Cyrodiil. If anything, it makes this whole ordeal easier, for a dead body won’t fight back when one tries to strip it of its valuables and belongs…in most cases, anyway. If anything, the servant is here to take the heat, lest there be a repeat of the Cirulius Tomb Raiding incident.

“It’s _Servyn_ ,” said servant cries, struggling once more to keep up with Outlander’s quick pace. “I’m n-not a servant, sera! It’s Ser- _vyn_!”

“Great, wonderful. Now shut up, yeah? We look suspicious enough, wandering outside of town without your complaining.”

Dusk turns quickly to nightfall, thus into an inky black world of trees and darkness for Outlander and Servyn, the former of which curses with every sticky, mucky step through a thick mossy pond as the latter follows by his side, wilted from the taller mer’s foul demeanor in all but his arms, which hold up a bugshell lantern as tall as his shorter frame can allow. At first, Outlander protested the servant running back to the tradehouse to pick it up _just in case_ , though these protests were only on the grounds of wasting time—Servyn used what little pittance he had to his name to purchase it, so he supposed he couldn’t complain _too_ much.

“Do you think we’re getting close to the water, sera?” Servyn pipes up. It’s hardly audible amongst the bubbling bogs and insect screes, but Outlander _could_ unfortunately still hear him.

“We’re _in_ water right now.”

“Oh. Erm, I mean…the shore water.”

“How should I know? Can’t see a damned thing out here, no thanks to this weak lamp.”

“It’s all I could afford…”

The ground suddenly crunches and feels less like a slurry of refuse, signifying they’re on solid ground again. Outlander sighs a deep breath of relief, though just as quickly gags at the odor he tastes in return.

“Are you alright, sera?” Servyn calls, kicking sludge off his shoes and running to catch up, only to stop and revile at the smell with a cry of “What _is_ that stink?”

“Stop screaming, you—“ stopping himself from finishing that remark, Outlander covers his mouth and nose with his palm. “I know this smell—rotting corpse. We’re getting close.”

Without another word, Outlander takes the bugshell lantern from Servyn and pushes on ahead, following the ever-increasing pungent stench that he wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with. From what little he could make out of his surroundings, the vegetation seemed to thin out a bit and, in places, looked as if they were cut and cleared through by someone—the killer, no doubt.

The sight of the corpse reveals itself in a near instant, as the range of the lantern’s faint light greatly limits one’s vision to a few feet in either direction. The muffled curse and slight jump back Outlander has upon the discovery is more-so out of nearly stepping on the body rather than the sight of a dead man itself—certainly not with this one, for the Imperial is remarkably well preserved against the cold stones and ferns, relatively speaking. His skin is pale and moldy, and his chest, though still clothed in finery befitting of a prestigious tax collector, bears a large gash across the heart, stained by the blackish brown crust of long-dried blood. By no means is the corpse a pretty sight…but Outlander has certainly seen _worse_ , in his time.

“Hello? Sera? Where are you?”

The servant’s calls are distant, but not _too_ distant. Soon enough, the smaller mer will notice the lantern’s light and find him, leaving little time to dawdle. The doublet is unsalvageable, but he loosens what he can and pockets it anyway, as a few scraps of cloth can be quite useful in case of accidents. The fine necklace around his neck, Outlander notices, may fetch a pretty penny at the pawnbroker’s. Once it’s loose, he pockets it and pats around the corpse’s shirt and pants pockets for a coin purse, _any_ coin purse, or valuables in general…ah! It takes some effort to roll the body over, but from a back trouser pouch he’s able to fish out just what he was looking for: a leather purse, fat and jingly, along with rolled-up documents containing tax records. These, Outlander decides, could be worth taking, should he decide to return to the Census and Exile Office to collect a reward (though given the healthy girth of the coin purse, he may not need to bother)—

“…What are you doing?”

Frowning, Outlander growls at the timid voice of the servant behind him. Now that he’s got what he’s came here for, he no longer feels the need to feign politeness.

“If you expect a share of the gold just for following me around, you’d best get out of here before you end up like the poor tax collector here.”

“A share of the…?” Servyn steps closer, only to gasp at the corpse laid before Outlander, with its clothes, belt and other non-valuable belongings strewn and discarded.

“What are—did you…”

“Oh, go act offended somewhere else—I’m done here.”

Outlander gets up, taking the bugshell lantern into his left hand. His right is unoccupied for only a moment before another grabs it.

“You…you robbed that corpse!”

Outlander doesn’t stop, ignoring the smaller mer’s weak attempts to pull him back.

“You said you were working with the Census and Exile Office. But you’ve just robbed that corpse—you’re no lawman at all!”

“Congratulations, little servant: you’ve figured me out! Oh dear! So sad, _whatever_ will I do, now that the _town servant_ knows I’m actually a bad, bad man…”

“You…you are! You _are_ a bad man!”

With one last tug in vain, Outlander rolls his eyes and effortlessly loosens his arm from Servyn’s grasp. Quick footfalls start behind him and end in front of him, as the servant attempts to block his way forward.

“Y-you can’t pass, you’re…you’re a criminal! Seyda Neen has enough trouble as is, without criminals like you!”

“ _Please_. I’m not the one who killed the tax collector—Seyda Neen’s already got criminals, given the murderer is still at large. Besides, I don’t plan to stay in your precious little _dump_ of a town; I’m headed for the first silt strider out of this miserable shithole. Don’t follow me, if you know what’s good for you.”

As it turns out, Servyn _doesn’t_ know what’s good for him, as before Outlander knows it, the servant throws himself at the taller mer with as much force as his small frame is capable—though he’s much shorter than Outlander, his pudgier body proves to be enough weight to bring them both down to the ground. Not quite as effortlessly as he’d wish, Outlander wrestles the servant off his chest and tosses him into the nearby mud. He gets up and pats himself to make sure none of his ill-gotten gains came loose, only to realize _something_ is off. Something is _missing_.

Servyn gets up just as quickly, not bothering to shake loose clumps of muck dripping from his body, bolting into the darkness towards Seyda Neen. It only takes Outlander a moment to realize what was lost—the coin purse!

He hadn’t bothered wasting time to retrieve the lantern, as the servant’s footsteps were easy to follow by listening for damp slimy noises of feet on mud. With the advantage of significant height, he’s quickly able to close in on Servyn, who notices the same and cries “Help! Guards!” just before Outlander tackles him down.

“I know you’ve got my coin purse, you little rat!” Try as Servyn may to squirm out of Outlander’s grasp, he’s quickly overpowered and dragged right back into the wrestling of limbs trying to either knock Servyn out, or find where he’s stowed the coin purse away and tear it from his robes—and tear he does, bringing up chunks of tattered cloth and a few streaks of blood, where the sharp edges of Outlander’s iron bracer cut through the servant’s skin in a blind rage-filled fury in search of the money he rightfully earned.

Such fury comes to a sudden crash back to reality—not at the discovery of his lost coin purse, but at the five harsh calls of “What’s going on here!?” ringing through the air—though he’s not able to make out _who_ they come from, the accompanying clanging of armor and blind flashes of light as several lanterns surround them reveal everything he needs to know, along with a sinking feeling in his gut—guards.

“G-guards! Oh, thank goodness you’re—ow…” Servyn whimpers, bruised and crushed underneath Outlander, who himself wears a few wounds from the scuffle. The guards’ discerning glares as they examine the two Dunmer do not let up in the least bit.

“We found the tax collector—the missing one. He’s dead. And _he_ —“ Servyn gestures to Outlander, “was just about to skip town with the poor man’s valuables, stolen right off the body! He’s a crook! A nasty, terrible man!”

The guards look to Outlander, who grumbles and defies his gaze away from Servyn.

“If you _must_ know the _truth_ : I’m but a humble investigator employed by the Census and Exile Office, simply on my way to report the tax collector’s unfortunate demise to the Breton who runs the place. This _bumbling servant_ stole something from me, so I tried to get my property back. He’s the criminal, not me.”

“What! That’s not true at all!” Servyn wanted nothing more than to launch into a tirade of everything he saw from the very beginning, but is swiftly cut off with a bellowing “Enough.”

One guard stands taller and grander than the others—the captain. He draws his sword, and steps forward, towering over the two mer on the ground.

“One thing’s clear—two bloodied strangers recently coming into town, the fate of the tax collector revealing itself, and now said strangers fight over the deceased’s belongings? I know _exactly_ what happened. Now, stand up and face your arrests, lest you prefer to face the sword.”

Both pale instantly, frozen upon the captain’s face twisted with disgust, his pristine steel sword glimmering in the lantern’s light. As if in perfect sync, both break from their frigid stances into a full-on sprint, without a single thought towards _where_ exactly they were to go, so long as it was away from the guards. Steel-clad footfalls scatter in several directions in pursuit of both, though fortunately for them, it was easy to avoid the guards by simply running away from the lights, throwing all caution to the wind and barreling through the dark unknown of the Bitter Coast swamps. Even as the footfalls soon end with irritated calls of “forget them; they’re as good as dead this far out in the wilderness” neither mer relent in their dazed flight into escape—that is, until the two collide with one another and, for the third time, crash into the dirt in a tangle of limbs and yelps.

Though his body is still filled with adrenaline, Outlander has little energy left to get up, and can only speak through bouts of panting and coughing.

“You...you—“

Servyn, being in a similar state of exhaustion, also doesn’t get up. He all but whimpers his words.

“Oh gods…oh gods, they think _we’re_ the criminals…but…it’s you! _You’re_ the criminal! The…the bad guy!”

“Will you _shut up_ about that, already!? If _you_ had only stayed out of my way, we wouldn’t even be in this mess!”

Servyn crawls out of the tangle and sits up, whining at the pain it brings just to move. “W-where…are we? Gods, I can’t see a thing… We’re going to die out here!”

“Great, just perfect—tell me something I don’t—“ Outlander growls, though Servyn flinches and shushes Outlander whilst throwing himself to the ground.

“What?” the taller mer whispers, though is shushed a second time. After a few moments, he can hear snarling from a distance, though not at all a _comfortable_ distance. Two pairs of glowing red eyes appear through a bushel of ferns, for just a moment, then disappear with the rustling of flora and muddy steps.

“Nix hounds. I saw them, and…and we’re going to die out here!” Servyn still whispers, though the graveness in his voice suggests that perhaps getting eaten by nix hounds would’ve been a more merciful end to perishing in the swamps. To say this fate is an all too close possibility that shakes even Outlander to his very core is an understatement; but he’s been through too many close calls to simply roll over and die right here and now.

By a miraculous strain of luck, as if the Divines were truly watching him, granting him a luck more prosperous than the greatest thieves and zealous gamblers could ever wish for, a large towering tree stands before them, its roots gnarled not to the ground, but into a cliff of mossy rocks. Clusters of branches and vines hang like veils off the stones, and upon getting up (with much effort and protesting from his aching limbs) he runs his arm through the vegetation—hollow, he finds. Exactly how deep this hidden opening goes, he’s not able to discern from the sea of darkness enveloping the world around them, but it was enough. It was shelter.

“Servant! This is _my_ den—I don’t care what you do or where you go, but you’re not welcome _here_ , got it? Goodbye.”


End file.
